Passenger Trains > Compartment vs. Bedroom

Does anyone know if there is (or was, I suppose) a specific standard for what differentiated a compartment from a bedroom as a passenger car accomodation? I understand that a compartment was larger than a bedroom, but was there a certain "industry standard" dividing line (e.g., 48.532 sq ft or more is a compartment, less is a bedroom)? Or did it vary by the individual railroad or car manufacturer? I've dug through various web sites without finding a clear answer, so thought I would ask if a TO reader had the information in a dusty old tome or dusty old brain (er, I mean a still sharp-as-a-tack brain containing the compiled wisdom of many years)!

Powhatanfan
(dustier & older than I'd care to admit)

I believe a bedroom had a 3-person wide bench seat and the berths were crosswise to the direction of train travel. A compartment had a 2-person wide bench seat and a folding chair. I don't remember that one was significantly larger than the other. I believe the compartment was usually more expensive than a bedroom, so it may have been larger. Can't recall the compartment berth arrangement but it may have been parallel to the direction of travel. Not a researched answer, just going by memory, such as it is.

No. While Pullman Company room sizes were pretty standard (didn't vary from railroad to railroad, except for a few special cars), bedrooms came in a couple of different configurations. Usually, two adjacent bedrooms had a folding wall between them. Each had its own private washroom, but room arrangements came in two flavors:

1) Of each pair of rooms, one had a long 3-person sofa crosswise of the room, and made down into two transverse bunks. The other room in the pair had a short sofa and a movable chair, and made down into two bunks lengthwise of the car, next to the window.

2) Other variant was that each room had two movable chairs, and both rooms had bunks that made up crosswise of the car, adjacent to the partition between the rooms. When the partition was folded back and the bunks were down, the two pairs of bunks were adjacent to each other.

Compartments were somewhat larger, and as I recall had a short sofa and a chair. They didn't have the folding partition, but in some configurations had a connecting door that usually opened into a drawing room (a three-person room) and in others had no connecting door at all.

Compartments were a bit rare. They were mostly found in 4-4-2 sleepers (four bedrooms, four compartments, two drawing rooms), the "Imperial" class cars. In these cars, the two drawing rooms were in the middle of the car, the compartments next to them, bedrooms at the ends. There were also a number of 4-4-5-1 cars, with four sections, four roomettes, five bedrooms, and one compartment. Seaboard had two cars that ran on the "Silver Meteor" that were 5-2-2 (5 BR, 2 CPT, 2 DR). In these, the two drawing rooms connected through a narrow door (my family reserved these two several times). As I recall, the compartments didn't connect to anything, there were two pairs of bedrooms, and one bedroom at the end of the car.

There were a few 6 CPT, 5 BR cars, but I never traveled in any of them. I believe they were pre-war (WW II) cars built for the western roads.

rresor Wrote:
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>
> There were a few 6 CPT, 5 BR cars, but I never
> traveled in any of them. I believe they were
> pre-war (WW II) cars built for the western roads.

The California Zephyr and Denver Zephyr both carried post-war Budd 6-5 sleepers built in the 1950s. The Empire Builder also had compartments some of its newer sleepers. They were basically length-wise double bedrooms with a bit more floor space.

There was an issue of Classic Trains last year that was devoted to the Pullman theme and had a fairly extensive section devoted to the configuration of Pullman cars.

"Initially, the seat/bert arrangement resembled a section; later, a sofa replace the two facing seats, resulting the crosswise/lengthwise bed configuration...Larger than double bedrooms, compartments were built long into the lightweight era."

The illustration shows a sofa facing a movable chair. The sofa made up into a bed and an upper bed folded down and was at a right angle to the sofa. The sink and toilet were, at least in later years, in a separate annex.

I think that was a difference in the
early years of lightweight sleepers--
a compartment always had an enclosed
toilet, while a bedroom likely had
the toilet out in the room. IIRC
DPM referred to that as "chummy".

Here's a scan of drawings that appear in Karl Zimmerman's "CZ - The Story of the California Zephyr". The 6-5 cars have alternating compartments and bedrooms, with the latter being of the sofa/crosswise bunk arrangement. Sliding walls allow a bedroom and compartment to be joined, as well as two adjacent compartments in the middle of the car. The dome-obs tail cars, however, have both the crosswise bunk and longtitudinal bunk style of bedroom. I'm not sure how well all of the notations will show in the scan, so to answer the original question, the bedrooms in the 6-5 cars were 5 ft 2 in long and the compartments were approximately 7 ft 5 in long.

Dave

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rresor - Thanks for the info! You described the arrangement I remember. Never could figure out the difference between the two accommodations.

colehour Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There was an issue of Classic Trains last year
> that was devoted to the Pullman theme and had a
> fairly extensive section devoted to the
> configuration of Pullman cars.
>
> "Initially, the seat/bert arrangement resembled a
> section; later, a sofa replace the two facing
> seats, resulting the crosswise/lengthwise bed
> configuration...Larger than double bedrooms,
> compartments were built long into the lightweight
> era."
>
> The illustration shows a sofa facing a movable
> chair. The sofa made up into a bed and an upper
> bed folded down and was at a right angle to the
> sofa. The sink and toilet were, at least in later
> years, in a separate annex.


In 1969, as a young Navy lieutenant, I rode in a compartment on Silver Gull, eastbound, in the last year of the California Zephyr operation, with my wife and two sons age 5 and 5 months. It was slightly cramped but tolerable, and the agent who sold it had recommended the compartment for a little more space....good advice. As previously noted, sink and toilet were in separate annex.

The other thing I still recall about the trip is that we boarded in the morning at an East Bay location (Livermore? Niles?) at a relatively remote, unstaffed "station" that consisted simply of an unpaved parking lot and a ten foot wide asphalt platform parallel to the track...no lights or shelter. However, that platform was clearly stenciled with car numbers (e.g.,CZ-10) at 85 foot intervals. We stood at the location that corresponded to our car number, along with my mother who had brought us there to what appeared to be the ends of the earth; although I never asked I'm still sure my mother thought we were out of our minds. We five were the only people there, and it was very,very quiet. However, near the scheduled arrival time, we heard the sound of a locomotive horn in the distance, and shortly thereafter the CZ swept around the curve, and our car was spotted adjacent to where we'd been standing. The porter was ready, and opened the door and dropped the trap immediately, placing a step box on the platform to assist our boarding. We climbed aboard, and within a minute we were on our way. Even in the last year of operation, CZ was a class act!
-- Hazegray

CN had 2 P-S cars, Burrard and Bedford, that had a 7 compartment configuration with a galley and lounge. The Burrard runs today and can be found on some AAPRCO excursions.

Santa Fe sleeping cars were primarily the Regal series
(4 bedrooms 4 compartments 2 drawing rooms) and the Pine
series (10 roomettes 6 bedrooms).

In the Regal series, all the bedrooms had the crosswise
sofa while the compartments had the sofa seat and chair.
The wall between Bedroom A - Compartment B;
Compartment G - Bedroom H; and Compartment I - Bedroom J
could be folded back to make a Suite.

The Pine cars had both types of bedrooms, i.e., those
with one long sofa crosswise or one sofa seat plus a
moveable chair. The wall could be folded back between
A-B, C-D and E-F to make a Suite.

The compartment was a larger room but I cannot give any
specifics as far a actual floor space. The difference
in cost was minimal. When I was in the Santa Fe
passenger department, in addition to a first
class ticket (plus extra-fare ticket Super Chief
only), the sleeping cars rates from Chicago to
Los Angeles were:

Roomette $33.80
Bedroom $55.05
Compartment $60.05
Drawing Room $83.00
Suite $101.95

The best room (my opinion) was Compartment F in the Regal
series car. It was located in the center of the car and
forward riding.

Here are diagrams of the Santa Fe's Regal and Pine series
cars.

peddler

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The upper berth in the compartments of some lightweight 4-4-2 sleepers, such as Overland Route "IMPERIAL" cars, have two very small oval or rectangular windows, more like viewing ports, that allow the occupant of the upper berth a little exterior view.

The sections in UP "ALPINE", "AMERICAN" and "NATIONAL" series lightweight sleepers also have those mini-windows for the upper berths.

It looks like the ATSF "Regal" series cars lacked enclosed facilities in the bedrooms while the "Pine" series had them - is that correct? On trains carrying both types was they any price distinction between the bedrooms?

Dave

These two ATSF diagrams seem to spell out the differences very well. As bedrooms were upgraded with a separate annex for toilet and washbasin, the floor area of the adjacent compartments was reduced significantly and they were reclassified as bedrooms. This shows up when comparing Compartment G through Bedroom J on the left diagram with Bedroom D through Bedroom A on the right diagram. The distance between partitions is still variable but the area of the former compartments is less because most of the annex is taken from them rather than the bedrooms.

When the CPR operated The Canadian, their Manor series sleeper was a 4.4.5.1(4 roomettes, 4 sections, five bedrooms, 1 compartment). The compartment was (and still is under Via) about a foot and a half wider than the bedrooms. It had three movable chairs (now 2)and was en-suite-able with the adjacent bedroom. There was also a higher fare for compartment F and possibly a higher rail fare. Some railways made you pay an extra 1/10 rail fare for exclusive occupancy of a compartment as some railways demanded an extra quarter fare for exclusive occupancy of a drawing room.

Under Via management the Manor car is now a 4.3.6.(4 roomettes, 3 sections, 6 bedrooms). One of the sections was converted into a shower room, and the compartment is now called a bedroom. Via doesn't charge a higher fare for the ex-compartment, and those in the know always ask for it because it is a bigger bedroom for no extra fare.

With a Compartment, the berths can be lowered and you still have a stationary or folding chair available to sit in with the berths in the night position. In a Bedroom, there is no room for a chair to sit in.

Some Compartments, like the ones on Northern Pacific 8 Duplex Roommette, 3 Double Bedroom, 1 Compartment, 6 Roommette sleepers, the chair in the Compartment was a non-collapsible chair.

Santa Fe Regals were terrific as you could use the adjoining Compartment + Drawing Rooms ensuite, and use the Drawing Room as sitting space and take a nap or retire in the adjoining Compartment.

Hubert

Author: DavidP Wrote
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> It looks like the ATSF "Regal" series cars lacked enclosed
> facilities in the bedrooms while the "Pine" series had them - is
> that correct? On trains carrying both types was they any price
> distinction between the bedrooms?

Yes ... the bedrooms in Regal cars did not have an enclosed
toilet.

No ... there was no price difference between a bedroom with or
without an enclosed facility. Prior to 1966, the only price
differential was for single occupancy bedrooms or compartments.
Single occupancy rates were slightly cheaper.

As I recall, Santa Fe reservation clerks did their best to assign
bedrooms with an unenclosed toilet to a passenger traveling alone.

Attached are drawings from a Pullman Company brochure showing the
two types of bedrooms, a compartment, a drawing room and a
bedroom suite.

peddler

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The CZ Obs cars had 3 double bedrooms and a drawing room. The double bedrooms were identical to the rooms in the other 10-6 sleepers on that train. The configuration of the rooms with alternating transverse and longitudinal beds allowed pairs of them to be opened ensuite. In the 10-6 sleepers, A-B, C-D, and E-F open ensuite. In the CZ obs car, A-B opens ensuite. C is identical to A, with the exception of a fixed wall, rather than a folding one. That wall adjoins the drawing room, D.